Eye of the Storm
by Dustbunny3
Summary: [IDW Comics-verse][One-shot][Pyra Magna/Rust Dust] The Torchbearers take shelter from a storm, Pyra Magna and Rust Dust have a moment. Can be read as gen.
A/N: Man, I suck at crossposting... Anyway! I wrote this for Femslash February. Not too fun to write, this one. There's not much worse than an out-of-the-blue concept that inspires you immediately and then fights the whole way through. I really wanted to do this ship once I thought of it, though, so I hung in there. Takes place somewhere between _Combiner Hunters_ and the Torchbearers meeting Optimus. Enjoy!

.

Small isn't something that Pyra Magna is used to feeling, but it's what she feels after Victorion. The ground is too close, now, the sky too far, the world too big. Her processor spins itself in circles, basic programming trying to make sense of what could be missing when she's all present and accounted for, and her spark reaches for warmth that isn't there. Diagnostic checks run over and over, pinging back the same information on a cycle as she tries to make her own frame feel familiar. The urge to call the Torchbearers to combine again, to be complete again, to be one instead of only one, is an itch beneath her plating.

It's especially intense just now, with the screams of the corrosive storm beyond the shelter they'd found at the eastern rim of the Tesk Crater rattling her plating and clawing at her very spark. Casting an eye on her fellows from where she stands near the mouth of their shelter, she wonders if they feel the same and feels wrong for not knowing.

Skybust and Stormclash are huddled together in a corner, heads ducked around words too quiet to hear. She has felt their fear through the new gestalt link that the connection they've always shared with each other will be swallowed by the connection they now share with the others, will become something no longer their own. Dustup keeps pacing, or trying to; she stalks a few steps in one direction and then stops, looking around as if disappointed to find herself with so little space to work with. She's carrying a conversation on with Jumpstream, who's sitting curled to one side. It's nonsense chatter of the sort they're both so fond of, but there's something stilted about it. There's something Dustup hides from the light of the link, something Jumpstream saw before it was locked away and now hides in turn. It doesn't affect their teamwork and so Pyra Magna hasn't pushed, but still she wonders what it is.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Rust Dust make a beeline for her and offers a hand on reflex, knowing what's coming. Taking the permission but not the assistance, Rust Dust hops and climbs up to make herself comfortable on Pyra Magna's shoulders. She folds her arms atop Pyra Magna's head and rests her head on them, feet swaying idly.

It's always striking to be reminded just how small of a frame Rust Dust's personality has been squeezed into; in Victorion's shadow, she seems liable to disappear. Pyra Magna reaches to skim fingertips up from Rust Dust's foot to her knee before settling her hand there, reassuring herself through touch of Rust Dust's solidity.

Plating twitches then settles beneath her fingers and Rust Dust frees an arm so that she can rest her hand over Pyra Magna's. Rust Dust's vents circulate steadily, tension that Pyra Magna didn't notice was there bleeding out on the currents. Irritation at realizing she'd missed something so obvious about someone she knows so well tightens her grip on Rust Dust's knee; the feeling of Rust Dust's fingers stroking over hers loosens it again in turn.

The fingers of her other hand tap a meandering rhythm before she slides her arm free, stretches it, then wraps it loosely over Pyra Magna's helm. Pyra Magna thinks for a moment she's going to sit up, but instead she leans to nuzzle words against Pyra Magna's plating, "This is gonna take some getting used to yet."

Offlining her optics, Pyra Magna hums her agreement. She rests her weight back against the cliff face and leans her head back into Rust Dust's almost-embrace. Rust Dust wriggles, but soon chirps a contented note and settles down again. Still her hand strokes over Pyra Magna's as though she's learning it again; perhaps she is, as Pyra Magna is.

Rust Dusts's systems whir merrily into her audials, vibrate against her plating. The other Torchbearers become white noise and even the sounds of the storm seem negligible. Pyra Magna turns her mind from the ground too close and the sky too far to the world pulling in tight around them.


End file.
